The Last Deep Breath

2

The next one was different. She found him in a bar outside of Reno.

She was a little older but a lot prettier and much sharper. She hadn’t yet had all the edges sanded off her yet. Her eyes were clear and alive with intelligence and wit. They still held out a touch of hope and they glittered with a kind of bemusement, like she knew this was only a pit stop on her way to the Gold Mile.

Every guy in the place sat up a little straighter. They got change and played tunes on the jukebox that they thought a woman would want to dance to. She moved around the bar and settled in beside anyone who might buy her a drink. She did it without the bullshit flirting that usually led to brawls or back alley rapes and cherry-topped prowl cars. The men joked with her. Nobody laid a hand on her. She’d throw down her Dewar’s and Coke and then move on to the next one, her conversation lively, killing the afternoon slug by slug.

At least that’s what Grey thought was happening at first. About an hour later he reassessed. She was trying to make him jealous, weaving among the old drunks and the truckers hopped on speed. Grey watched her in the mirror behind the bar and, though their gazes never met, he knew she was enjoying being on stage for him. He was a properly attentive audience.

He eavesdropped, his concentration fine-tuned and perfectly focused. Her name was Kendra. If someone tried to call her anything else, the diminutive Ken or Kennie, she corrected them.

She had an easy way about her, an effortless laugh that sounded just a little too natural. It was the soft melody of every woman you wanted to lie beside, your head resting in her lap while she stroked your forehead. You look up into her eyes and she leans down, gives you the killer grin, her bee-stung lips parting to meet your own.

She was blonde, her hair feathered to frame a heart-shaped face, styled in a way that was popular when he was kid and seemed to be making a comeback. It looked good on her. She had high cheekbones that drew you to her hazel eyes flecked with gold. There was some nice meat and jiggle to her hips. Breasts that had just enough bounce to them beneath her blouse to be real. The teeth weren’t. They were so straight, even, and white that they must’ve run into the mid-five figures.

She knew how to throw her head back far enough so that the light caught her perfectly and lit her like the star of a Broadway show. She had the looks but wasn’t vapid enough to be a model, not even an older one who couldn’t do top magazine cover work anymore. That meant actress.

He thought he might’ve seen her before. He guessed she’d had moderate success but had gone into a bad skid. It had lasted a while but she’d pulled herself out and was going to start phoning her producer and director friends and calling in any favors that might still be owed. Not a lot of them would be but there were probably at least a couple. Enough pull to get her back in the door for a few auditions.

Grey used to be a movie buff. Pax had gotten him a first-rate entertainment system for his shitty little apartment down in the Village. Grey walked in one day and the front door wouldn’t open all the way. It was striking against one of the surround sound speakers, the sucker was two-and-a-half-feet tall. He couldn’t get to his hall closet. Couldn’t get to the fire escape because the sill was stacked with the DVR, the DVD burner, the TIVO, the equalizer, other equipment he didn’t even recognize. You couldn’t watch a movie with the volume cranked over 3 or the windows would rattle so badly you were afraid they’d blow out onto 8^th Street.

The manager stopped by once to bitch at Grey about the noise. Pax walked the guy out into the hall and spoke quietly to him for a minute, and that was the last time the manager ever bothered Grey.

He watched the side of Kendra’s face, listened, and kept a steady buzz going on the weak beer while he tried to place her. Thought maybe she’d been in some lowbrow comedy he’d seen a few years back. Guy’s best friend turns out to be gay and a famous drag queen. Guy has issues with it but decides what the hell. Live and let live, Kumbaya. Then the drag queen best friend turns out to actually be an undercover CIA operative who’s been taken captive by the terrorists. Guy teams up with eight other drag queens-Lola May, Verinia La Fleur, Mistress Lucretia-to go bust him out of Libya. Hilarity ensues-look at the queens doing Judo chops in their high heels, using their feather boas to strangle the terrorist leader before he can turn the key on the nuke.

He thought maybe Kendra played the CIA Chief’s secretary that the guy falls in love with. Bossy at first, good with guns-running joke was that every time he put his hands on her he’d come back with a grenade, an assault weapon, a six-inch throwing knife.

She turned again, hit the pose, caught the light.

Grey thought, Yeah, that’s her.

They closed out the bar together and hung back while the last of the locals staggered away. The bartender moved off and started wiping down the tables and turning over chairs.

Perfume the scent of jasmine. He also smelled aloe and a veggie body wash. Kendra slid to Grey’s side, eased in nice and tight, breathed in his ear, and said, “So?”